RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Four out of five signs of DOOM.

Benjamin Sarlin has compiled a list of… well, five signs of DOOM: by his and my count we’ve hit four of them. The fifth (We Totally Meant To Lose Anyway) will probably hit in force after the next time Cook and/or Rothenberg update their list of Democrats whose staffers need to update their resumes and/or start shredding the paperwork in anticipation of Darrell Issa’s 2011 Investigation-O-Rama.

But I’d add a sixth: GOTV Will Save Us! It’s an old crowd favorite, mostly because it’s not necessarily untrue. GOTV can save you. It never does, but it can.

PS: Ace has a couple of posts about GOTV from the other side of the equation, and they address something that should be said: GOTV does not adequately simulate genuine enthusiasm, but it is an absolutely critical component of getting the most out of genuine enthusiasm. Right now, the Democratic base is simply not enthusiastic about voting. And why should it be? The economy is a shambles (word chosen deliberately), the country is sour on their political party, and the places where the administration has been almost successful have pretty much been the places where the administration has most ignored the wishes of the Democratic base. What they have left to work with is whatever energy that they can rip out of themselves by continuous political galvanic shock; for the next week expect progressives to be constantly muttering Two-Minute Hates to themselves. It won’t save them, but it will get them off of the couch.

Meanwhile; we’ve got plenty of energy and the wind at our backs. Great! – Now go put the car in drive, and take advantage of it. Because right now the car’s at 2 or 3 or whatever those numbers are in automatic transmissions that nobody inside a city area ever uses. In other words… time to tap that enthusiasm and Get Out The Vote.